Thanksgiving at Alice's Restaurant

Welcome to Alice's Restaurant

For many years, it has been a tradition in our family to listen to Alice's Restaurant every Thanksgiving. This is by no means a unique tradition, but it does still get a rise out of the uninitiated, Mr. B included. Ten minutes into the song the first year I shared it with him, we had a conversation that went something like this...

Mr B: Does this song ever end?

Me: Not any time soon.

Mr B: It isn't even a song. It's just
some guy who sounds like Bob Dylan's cousin talking nonsense.

Me: He's Woody Guthrie's son. As in, 'This Land is Your Land.'

Mr B: And you listen to this every Thanksgiving?

Me: Of course. Everyone should.

Mr B: You're adorable. (←That right there - just one of the reasons I love him so much.)

And because he is a wonderful, patient man, Mr. B sat through all 18-ish minutes of Alice's Restaurant, laughing at me as I sang along to all twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, there on the Group W bench. 

And he will do it again this year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Because it's a tradition I love and he loves me, and that is what you do for the people you love - you endure their family traditions until somewhere along the way, their traditions became your traditions. Because that's what makes a family.

Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

- Arlo Guthrie

This post is dedicated to Mr. B, and to Thanksgiving's past, present, and future.

Let the good times roll.

A Warm, Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Thanksgiving Recipes

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